Chandigarh, Feb 12 2024-
Heavy security and massive traffic diversions at the entry points in Haryana ahead of farmers’ protest march to the national capital on February 13 severely impacted the movements of commuters on Monday.
Amidst the police build up on almost all national highways and major roads, the commuters opted village routes to enter Haryana for their onward journey.
Sufficient security arrangements have been made in Haryana to prevent any untoward incident, a senior police official here told IANS.
The sealing of Punjab-Haryana borders by putting up barricades, boulders, tippers filled with sand and barbed wires and iron spikes, has impacted the movement of vehicular traffic with huge traffic snarls. Even paramilitary forces have been deployed to prevent untoward incidents.
In Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana, Section 144 of the CrPC has been imposed in the city for 60 days.
Security has been beefed up along the Singhu, Ghazipur and Tikri borders to stop protests in Delhi.
Several farmer associations, mostly from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab, have called for the protest.
This has been the second biggest protest by the farmers since they agreed to withdraw the agitation against the now repealed farm laws in 2021.
Besides a legal guarantee for an MSP, the farmers are also demanding implementation of the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations, farm debt waiver and withdrawal of police cases, besides “justice” for victims of the Lakhimpur Kheri violence.
Local authorities in Haryana’s Ambala, Jind, Fatehabad and Sirsa districts have sealed almost all the entry points at the Punjab borders by raising huge concrete walls.
To prevent any disturbance in the law and order situation, the mobile Internet services will be suspended in Ambala, Kurukshetra, Kaithal, Jind, Hisar, Fatehabad and Sirsa districts till 11.59 p.m. on February 13.
The government has advised commuters not to take the Delhi-Chandigarh highway. (Agency)
